My back pages....the first five years.

Subject: My back pages....the first five years. Sun Feb 10, 2013 10:33 pm

Unfortunately, the majority of my automotive history pre-dates the availablity of cheap digital media....or in fact ANY digital media, come to that. In 1983 the average home photographer had a Kodak/Halina 110 point/shoot with all the image quality you'd get if you smeared Vaseline on the lens of a modern camera. So you'll just have to use your imaginations throughout most of this tome. I'll split this story up, otherwise you'll get bored.....so for now I'll take you through to about 1988.

As I've already stated in my introduction thread, I started driving in July '83 with a '67 Triumph 2000 which lasted me for 12 months before being flogged to a mate who kept it in his storage yard for a couple of years before punting it on to a banger racer. I did have the pleasure of witnessing its final moments at Hednesford at a Banger meet in 1988 where it managed to despatch various Jags/A60's into the catch fencing before getting 'followed in' on and folding up like paper.

In the meantime I'd bought a '75 Mk3 Cortina off a mate who'd managed to write off a Nova with it whilst drunk-driving. Silly boy, who quite rightly had his licence taken off him for a year. I paid £40 for it, unbolted the mangled remains of the nearside front wing, put a chain through the bent inner and straightened it out on my parent's gatepost. Second-hand wing from the scrappers, a bit of panel-beating around the front valance (thanks Dad) and copious amounts of Car-Plan Sahara Beige had it looking.....well, like a 10 year-old Cortina that had been in a shunt and repaired by a chimp. Served me well, to be honest. IIRC it needed a couple of patches for the next MOT (thanks Dad, again) but kept me mobile for 18 months until the rattling camshaft (it was a 1600 Pinto) was joined by a flickering oil light, prompting a one-way trip to the local car auctions where it (with the oil light disconnected....) fetched about £65.

You'd have thought that owning one Crap Beige Pinto-powered Ford would have been enough. What did I replace it with? Well, another mate had a facelifted Mk1 Capri 1600XL which had been rear-ended by an MG Metro outside Woolaton Park in the queue to get into the RAC Rally in 1985, and had been languishing on his drive for a few months afterwards. So I gave him (I think, it was a LONG time ago) £50 for it, drove it home, replaced the rear valance/panel (thanks dad....can you see a pattern emerging here?), MOT'd it and put it back into daily service. Not for long, though. Unfortunately the impact had twisted the offside chassis leg slightly so that it was snapping a leaf spring about every three weeks. A situation that was exacerbated by the fitment of a pair of 7" wide Wolfrace wheels on the back that I'd spotted in the local paper (gimme a break, this WAS 1986). Once again it was disposed of via Bromsgrove Car Auctions where if I remember correctly it made a sale price in three figures. Not £5.99.

Then came a Teal Blue Mini Clubman. COH131K cost me £70 via the auction on the same night I'd sold the Capri. Filthy dirty with a disgusting green vinyl interior, moss growing in the guttering and a missing front bumper, but seemingly mechanically sound. A weekend's cleanup saw it looking really tidy and once I'd spent some cash on a set of two up/two down lamp brackets, a brace of Lucas 20-20 spotlamps, four gennie Cooper S 'reverse rims' (which cost me £25 with tyres......oh for a set now) and a Peco big-bore back box it really did look the part. Even if the stock 998 meant that in reality it couldn't get out of its' own way. By this time I'd gotten involved in Rallying via my local motor club and the Mini proved spectacularly reliable, despite chasing road rallies round the Welsh Borders of a Saturday night and being used for marshalling duties on various forest events in the same area and beyond. It may not have been the best car I ever owned, but it's one of the ones I look back on with the fondest memories. Unfortunately the end came when I attacked a hump-backed bridge with a bit too much brio, which resulted in an almighty crack when I eventually landed as the rotten bulkhead/A-post/floor gave way on the driver's side, to the extent that as I stood on the brake pedal the driver's door came open. I did drive it like that with the errant door tied shut with some rope (thank heavens for opening rear windows on Minis) and the split patched up with some hefty plate (thanks Dad....again) but after a couple of weeks it was returned to standard spec then dispatched to the auction house from whence it came. Can't remember how much it fetched, though.

That was replaced by a '77 Chevette that met its end after only a couple of months in a muddy Welsh lane after being slid sideways into a gatepost. Armed with a half-decent insurance payout and my savings, I then spent £600 on a full road-rally prepared 1600 Avenger off a fellow motor club member who'd actually won his class in a regional road rally championship in it the previous year. I do have a shonky 110 photograph of that I scanned in years ago, but it's in my old Photobucket account and now they've managed to make it ten times as clunky and rubbish to access as it used to be, I've lost the will to go looking for it. I never competed in it, but had about twelve months af great fun charging around the local (and not so local) lanes.

That's it for now, the next riveting tales of my ownership of a motley assortment of shonky old tat will hopefully contain a pic or to, as I bring this sorry tale up to about 1995......until next time.....